


the pain pays our dues

by zozo



Series: Here Comes the First Day [21]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Communication, F/F, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26287363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zozo/pseuds/zozo
Summary: Catra wants to give something special to Adora, but nothing seems special enough.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow & Catra & Glimmer (She-ra), Bow & Catra (She-Ra)
Series: Here Comes the First Day [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1755943
Comments: 33
Kudos: 204
Collections: the corners of today





	the pain pays our dues

Bow looks up from his tinkering when he hears a short, rapid-fire series of knocks at the door of his workshop.

“Come on in, Catra!” he calls cheerfully.

The door eases open, and it’s indeed Catra who slips through, looking a little sheepish. “How’d you know it was me?”

He grins at her. “It was a very Catra knock. You okay? You look worried.”

“It’s… it’s fine, I’m fine, I’m just—I’m looking for Glimmer; have you seen her? I need to—I need to talk to her about something.”

“I think she’s got a bunch of royal stuff in a row today,” Bow says, “but I know she’s got her comm pad—”

“No—no, that’s for emergencies,” says Catra quickly. “This is definitely not an emergency. I’m just… I’m stressing out about something, and I thought maybe she could help.”

“Hmmm.” Bow pauses for a moment. “You know you can talk to _me_ , right?”

“What?”

“Whatever you’re stressed about. If you can’t find Glimmer, and you don’t want to call her—I might not be quite as much help as she’d be, but I’m happy to listen if you want to talk, okay? Always.”

Catra seems really struck by that. “Oh. Uh. Yeah, okay. S-sure, Arrows. That’s… thanks. I’m not interrupting anything?”

“Nah. Come sit down with me.” The only seats are wooden work stools, but Catra’s definitely sat on worse—she perches on top of the nearest one to Bow with her knees pulled up to her chest.

“So what’s up?” he asks once she’s settled.

Catra sighs, resting her chin on her knee. “So Adora [gave me her pin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24700945). You know that, you were there. Not _right_ there, but you were there right after.”

“When you weren’t wearing pants.”

“Exactly. So… so Adora gave me her pin, right? She said it was special to give me because it was special to her.” Bow is nodding along. “And I’ve been thinking of what I want to give _her_ , and I realized…” She sighs, shoulders slumping. “I don’t have anything like that. I don’t have anything special. Everything I ‘owned’ growing up belonged to the Horde. I was—I, I guess I thought I was too smart to get attached to sentimental crap, I don’t know. And since coming to Bright Moon, I mean… I have _stuff_ now… but nothing feels special _enough_.”

She looks up at him sharply. “And I know about the—the fucking She-Ra thing, okay? The crown. That does _not_ count. I didn’t _give_ that to her, I didn’t _ask_ her to wear it, I want…”

Bow nods again. “You want the little ceremony. Like Adora got to do.”

“Yeah—wait, does… is that…?”

“That’s totally okay, Catra.” Bow’s smile is extra reassuring. “That’s an extremely normal and okay thing to want.”

“Okay.” She sighs a long, heavy sigh. “Okay, so… yeah. I don’t know what to do, Bow.”

“Well. I don’t know _exactly_ what you should do, but—do you want to talk about options?”

“What do you mean, options?”

“Okay, so, like—you don’t have any old treasured possessions, but that’s not the only kind of thing you could give her. You know my dad Lance? His sash is just a nice sash that’s George’s favourite colour. It’s not about _what_ you exchange; it’s about other people seeing that the two of you belong together.”

“That’s…” Catra furrows her brow. “That’s sweet, I guess. I didn’t know that about your dads. I just…”

She looks down at the golden wing on her shirt. She thinks about Adora fastening it to her stupid red jacket, every single day.

She wonders how long Adora had been planning to give it to her.

“Random question,” she says into the silence. “What did Adora ever tell you about growing up in the Fright Zone? Not stuff about me—about the place. What she… what it was like for her, there.”

Bow frowns. “Not a lot, honestly. Little things? She’d try a new food and compare it to Horde rations; the beds were a lot harder there compared to Bright Moon—that kind of stuff. Other, bigger things… she talked around them, sometimes. Implied enough that we got the general idea. Never a lot of details, but… we know it was hard for her. For both of you.”

Catra’s still looking down at the pin, and the words just kind of fall out of her mouth. “She said she ‘escaped.’”

“Who, Adora? When? Escaped from where?”

“When she gave me this. She said it was her first special thing after she escaped the Fright Zone. I—I’d never heard her say it like that before: ‘escape.’ I guess I always thought she just… left.” She sighs. “Does that make sense? It _feels_ like there’s a big difference, I just, I don’t know how to explain it.”

But Bow nods in understanding. “I think I get it. The difference between walking away from somewhere you don’t want to be, and running away from somewhere you can’t stay.”

“Yeah,” Catra says. “Yeah. And I used to think…” She trails off into a long, long pause, then shakes her head. "It doesn’t matter. I don’t think it anymore.

“But if she—if she _escaped_ , and then she came here, and if this was the first thing that was hers after that… and then she gave it to me…?” She takes a deep breath and presses the heels of her palms into her eyes for a second.

“No offence to your dad, man, but I gotta do better than a sash here.”

But Bow just laughs. “I get that too. We’ll help you figure it out, okay? Me and—” His tracker pad beeps. “Ha! No way. Look who it is.” He taps a button and Glimmer’s smiling face appears on the screen.

“Hey, you!” she says. “I finished all my meetings for the day!” She looks over his shoulder. “You’re in your workshop?”

“Yeah! I’m actually hanging out here with Catra.”

“Catra’s there? Well, now I’m _definitely_ coming over.” The screen blinks off and, with a flash of pink and purple magic, Glimmer blinks into the room, smiling wide. “What’s going on, you two?” Then she notices the tension still lining Catra’s face. “Everything okay?”

When Catra just sighs, Bow leans over and asks in a low voice, “Want me to tell her?” Catra nods gratefully.

“Catra hasn’t decided what to give Adora to wear,” Bow explains, and then lifts a hand. “Apart from the She-Ra thing. The pin was really important to Adora, and… nothing feels important enough for Catra to give back. It’s stressing her out a little.”

“Oh! Oh, Catra, come here.” Glimmer all but swoops over to Catra’s stool and wraps her up in a big hug. “We’ll help you figure it out. Don’t worry.”

“See?” Bow smiles at Catra over Glimmer’s shoulder. “Told you.”

When Glimmer lets Catra go, the queen has a thoughtful smile on her face. “So… I’m going to suggest something crazy.”

Catra opens her hands, palms up. “I’m desperate. I’ll take anything you’ve got.”

* * *

**Earlier that day**

Adora waits to take Glimmer aside at breakfast until she’s sure Bow and Catra have each other completely distracted—which is to say, once their debate over the relative tactical superiority of a well-equipped archer and an “agile—no no no, nimble, that’s right, _nimble_ ” melee fighter armed with a whip—escalates to the point that Adora’s grateful there aren’t any actual weapons in the dining room.

“This is going to end in some kind of elaborate combat test, isn’t it,” Glimmer says.

“Almost definitely,” Adora agrees with a fond sigh, “and we’ll be the judges whether we like it or not.” Glimmer giggles as Adora continues, “I wanted to ask you something, though. Is… how’s your mom doing?”

Glimmer seems a little surprised at the question. “Oh! Um. She’s doing good. Still taking it easy, spending a lot of time with Dad. Between me and him, we’ve got royal duties more than covered, so she doesn’t have to worry about any of that. And, um—” Glimmer looks down at her hands for a minute.

“She’s still disconnected from the Moonstone, so she barely has any access to magic at all. And part of me feels absolutely terrible about that, even though she says it’s all right. I don’t know if I believe her, but… it’s what she keeps saying.”

Adora nods and gives Glimmer’s shoulder a loving squeeze. Glimmer looks up and smiles gratefully.

“Anyway,” she says, “Dad and Aunt Casta are going to try to work out the inverse of the spell that transferred the Moonstone’s total power to me—obviously it was never _meant_ to be reversed, but you never know. We might be able to share it again. And if it turns out to be something we can control, I could even pass _all_ the magic back to her when we go out into space, when I’d be out of range of the runestone and couldn’t use magic anyway.” She leans in, and up, and kisses Adora on the cheek. “We’ll see how it goes,” she finishes. “Thanks for asking.”

Adora blushes a little. “I did have kind of a selfish motive. I wanted to ask her, or ask you to ask her, about, um—the thing, with the pin? Catra hasn’t said—I mean, I can tell she’s having a hard time deciding what to give me back. And I thought, well, Queen Angella probably knows a lot about this stuff, she might have some ideas and… it’s not like Catra’s going to ask _me_ for help about this one, but I don’t know. I just hate seeing her stressed out about it.”

“Oh!” Glimmer’s eyes light up. “Adora, that’s—that’s so sweet. I know my mom would love to help if she can. I can even talk to her this morning; I’m supposed to go over to their suites right after breakfast.”

“That—oh, Glimmer, that would be just perfect,” Adora sighs with relief. “Thank you so much.”

Bow and Catra suddenly get quiet. Adora looks over nervously, worried Catra might have overheard, but it looks like the argument has just reached a decisive moment: they’re staring at each other coolly, arms crossed, nodding in agreement—over what, Adora’s almost afraid to ask.

“There’s only one way to settle this,” Bow says with uncharacteristic gravitas.

“Looks like it,” Catra drawls.

“Oh no,” says Glimmer.

Adora holds up a hand. “Guys, what are you—”

“ _Whip vs. archery combat test_ ,” they say in unison. Glimmer covers her face with her hands.

“This weekend,” Bow says. “Rainsday afternoon. On the south lawn. If you’ve got the guts.”

“South lawn? So that’s where you want to be humiliated. Fair enough.”

They only manage another couple of seconds of deadpan eye contact before they both double over laughing.

Glimmer instantly sighs with relief. “Oh, I’m _so_ glad you two aren’t actually going to—”

“Oh no,” Catra cuts her off, “we’re definitely going to. Rainsday afternoon. Didn’t you hear?”

“Yeah,” says Bow. “We’re just not actually mad at each other about it.” He catches Catra’s eye and they both crack up again.

* * *

**That evening**

“Catra?” Adora steps gingerly outside. “Bow said you were out here.”

The small, unfamiliar terrace is tucked high in a corner of the palace roof. There’s some patio seating, and an absolutely incredible view, and not much else.

“Hey, Adora.”

Adora wheels around and Catra’s walking towards her, wearing a cropped jacket over a bandeau top, the late afternoon sun flashing across the gold pin on her lapel.

Adora’s mouth goes a little dry. “Gods, you look hot,” she says. It’s not what she meant to say, but it’s also not untrue.

Catra’s strut doesn’t get any less confident, but her smile melts from cocky to bashful, and she closes the last bit of distance to kiss Adora passionately on the mouth. “Maybe you’re just easily impressed,” she demurs, with a wry quirk of her lips. Adora shakes her head vehemently.

“Nope: hot.”

Catra laughs. “Come sit down with me, flatterer. I want to ask your opinion about something.”

“My opinion, huh? Finally,” Adora winks. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask.”

“Oh my g—shut _up_! This is serious! Not the bad kind of serious, but I do want to know what you think about something—something _specific_.” She sticks her tongue out at Adora, who winks again, and takes Catra’s hand as they sit down near the edge of the terrace. The river that runs through Bright Moon glitters far below them with golden sunlight.

“Okay,” Adora says. “I’m ready. Ask away.”

“Okay,” Catra echoes, and takes a deep breath. “So, um… I’ve been thinking. Since the other night. About what you said, when you gave me your pin to wear. About how you’d had it for a long time, and it was special to you, and so it’s special for me to wear it, and—and I realized I don’t have anything like that to give you.”

Adora puts a hand over her mouth. “Oh, Catra,” she says softly through her fingers, “listen…”

But Catra gently stops her.

“Just let me finish. Please. I can—I’ll skip ahead—so I talked to Bow this morning. About this.”

“You asked _Bow_ about this? Awwww!”

“Wh—what’s with the voice? I said Bow, not a basket of puppies. I was going to ask Glimmer, but I couldn’t find her, and Bow was all, ‘Hey, I’m your friend too, let me try to help,’ and… I don’t know.” Catra rubs the back of her neck. “He told me stuff about his dads and… it didn’t really give me any ideas, but it made me feel better about not having any ideas. And then Glimmer caught up with us, and she said… well. She said her _mom_ had an idea.”

The look on Adora’s face is slowly shifting from playful flirtation to something more like wonder.

“And so… it’s the kind of thing that can’t really be a _surprise_ , but… the surprise wasn’t the special part of this, for me.” Catra touches the pin, and Adora makes a sweet, sympathetic noise and leans forward to kiss Catra on the forehead.

“I don’t need to be surprised,” she confirms softly, only the slightest quiver of emotion in her voice. Instead of saying anything else, Catra just flashes a smile that’s equal parts shaky and sweet, and hands Adora a folded-over piece of paper from inside her jacket.

When Adora opens it, she sees an inked drawing, faint sketch marks from a drafting pencil still visible behind the bold black lines of…

It’s the familiar silhouette of Catra’s old mask—now part of the crown that frames the face of the true form of She-Ra—but the shape has been incorporated into another design, the two blending into one. Adora’s so distracted by her own racing pulse that she parses the angular lines and dots of First Ones script as simple text first.

It’s just the word “heart”…

And then she realizes—it’s also the emblem of the Failsafe.

“You said at Sea Hawk’s birthday,” Catra starts, her voice barely trembling at all, “and I know you were a little drunk, but… you said you were thinking about getting a tattoo.” Adora, who’d only just glanced up at Catra, sucks in a sharp breath through her teeth and snaps her eyes right back down to the paper.

“And Queen Angella said… a tattoo is something to wear, too. And I sure don’t trust myself to _give_ you one, but I thought… if I drew this, and you wanted it, you could like, get a professional to do the actual tattoo…”

Adora has one hand clasped at her chin, lower lip quivering, eyes shining with tears even as Catra sees them slipping into a thousand-yard stare. Recognizing the signs of an impending Adora-meltdown, she steps right into her girlfriend’s personal space, threading her hands through Adora’s long blonde hair and gently resting their foreheads together.

“Hey, dummy,” Catra says, trying to make her voice light and teasing, but it’s still unsteady with anticipation and excitement and jangling nerves. “It’s just a yes/no question.”

And it works. Adora’s appalled scoff at Catra’s irreverence sounds a little like a sob, but it pulls her out of her own head enough to give Catra a half-hearted shove, before all but _yanking_ her back into her arms.

“The answer is yes, you asshole,” and Adora laughs and cries into Catra’s neck, and Catra cries and laughs into Adora’s shoulder, and the setting sun above them turns the sky a thousand shades of pink and orange and silver and red and gold.


End file.
